by Heide Goody
“Right-o.”
“How are Ben and Nerys?”
“I’ve just put them in a coffin. You know, in preparation.”
“Dear God,” said Michael. “They’re not even dead yet. Are they?”
“Gotta go,” said Clovenhoof. “We’re going for a ride.”
Clovenhoof ended the call.
Michael looked at Buford’s Funeral Directors. There was no longer any need for the night vision goggles. The undertakers was entirely aflame, and cast its fiery glow along the length of the high street.
Clovenhoof slammed the lid of the coffin twice.
“Ready in there?”
“What do you think?” came Nerys’s muffled reply. “Ben, what have you been eating?”
“Punjabi egg Masala and onion bhaji.”
“And I thought the fire was hot!”
Clovenhoof took that as an all clear and, with the gurney-mounted coffin before him, charged at the door. The plan was simple: he would race the gurney down the stairs, open the window, flip the coffin lid, and follow his annoying-not-flameproof flatmates out onto the safety of the sloping roof. He saw it with such obvious clarity in his mind’s eye, he was quite taken aback when it didn’t work as anticipated.
They smashed through the door just fine and, while Nerys and Ben screamed, plunged onwards down through the billowing smoke and oven-like heat that filled the stairway. Clovenhoof could see nothing ahead of him as he juddered down the steps, and struck the first floor landing far harder than he had intended. The gurney bounced off the floor and Clovenhoof tripped. Ben shrieked. The gurney, wreathed in flames, slammed off the wall directly ahead and the coffin flew off, straight through the window. Clovenhoof, already running/falling at a speed, leapt the gurney and followed the coffin through the smashed pane, grasping at one of its handles as he did.
Nerys was swearing, but it was drawn out into a yell so long, Clovenhoof had no idea what the swear word actually was. The coffin, with Clovenhoof now dragged in its wake, came down on the tiled roof and slid onward towards the roof edge and the yard beyond.
“…uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!” screamed Nerys, clearing up one mystery in Clovenhoof’s mind.
The coffin toboggan smashed the plastic guttering at the edge of the roof, flew off, and landed with a bone-jarring clang on the roof of the white stretch transit van parked in the rear yard.
“My head!” exclaimed Ben.
“Hey, guys,” Clovenhoof whispered through the coffin lid.
“Are we out?” said Nerys.
“Yes.”
“Out of the fire?”
“Guys,” said Clovenhoof, “do we know more than one person who owns a stretch transit van?”
“What? No.”
“Ah, then I think I might know what started that fire.”
“Listen!” said Nerys severely. “Are we out and safe, Jeremy?”
A head momentarily appeared out of the driver’s side window, and then the van engine started up.
“Out, yes,” said Clovenhoof. “Safe? Um.”
The van accelerated out of the back gates of the yard and swung onto Redacre Road.
“What’s happening?” yelled Ben.
Clovenhoof lay spread-eagled across the coffin, braced in an effort to try and keep it and himself on the roof.
“It’s a little bit hard to explain,” Clovenhoof panted.
Michael knew that some individuals regarded him as essentially humourless. Likewise, he had never seen evidence of a sense of humour in the Almighty. However, he found a certain irony that, on the first night he had taken to the heights to search for the Beast of Boldmere, he was given a peerless view of a catastrophic building fire and the sight of a van trying to shake a coffin-riding demon from its roof. And, surely, if there was proof of the Lord’s sense of whimsy, it was at this very moment, with these spectacles to distract him, that Michael saw the beast he was searching for.
The Beast of Boldmere, big as a polar bear, lithe as a puma, agile as a gibbon, bounded from rooftop to rooftop, throwing tiles and chimney pots aside as it cut across the town towards its obvious target.
“Really?” said Michael to himself.
He made to phone Clovenhoof to warn him, and then stopped, knowing the old devil was in no position to answer any calls.
Nerys had few things to be thankful for.
She had spent what felt like an age in the casket, pressed up against Ben, being flung back and forth and side to side, being slammed into a variety of very hard surfaces, all the while having to breathe in his currified breath. She had also, with the exception of the handbag she had instinctively grabbed, left her life’s belongings behind in that burning building: all her clothes, all her personal documents, all the recordings for her Youtube channel, and, gallingly, every scrap of evidence she had on Chip Malarkey’s fraudulent dealings.
Nerys had few things to be thankful for, but one of the few was that she had insisted on lying on top in the coffin. Ben was barely larger than her but, even in an inferno, she hadn’t been willing to have him weighing down on her. More importantly right now, she was glad she was on top because, in all the violent commotion, she was convinced she was going to throw up.
“I’m sorry, Ben,” she wailed.
“It’s okay,” he whimpered. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“It’s not what I’ve done …” she began to say.
“Hang on!” yelled Clovenhoof.
There was a screech, a thump, and they were suddenly airborne once more. Nerys, arms pinned, clutched at Ben’s shoulders. They struck the ground hard, and rolled. The lid cracked violently, and they tumbled out at speed onto tarmac. Nerys scraped along the road and came to a rest in the gutter. She bit her lip at a thousand minor pains, and rolled into a sitting position. Ben was crawling towards her, dazed and groaning, his dressing gown ripped along one side. Clovenhoof was even further down the road, in the messy ruins of the crashed coffin.
And nearby was the oddest sight. A white stretch transit van – Chip Malarkey’s stretch transit van – was stopped askew in the road, and the Beast of Boldmere was tearing at its tyres, bumper, and grill with tooth and claw. Nerys knew some dogs chased cars, but she never imagined what they would do if they caught one. Here was a beast that had caught a van and was fully equipped to do something about it.
There was the rending sound of stressed metal, and the wheel arch panel came away in the beast’s jaws.
“Jesus, that thing’s big,” gasped Ben, collapsing next to Nerys in the gutter.
“Still want to stuff it?” said Nerys.
“Shhh, it might hear us,” he said.
The unseen driver stuck the van in reverse and powered back up the street. The beast held onto the radiator grill and smashed in the headlights with a free claw as they went.
“That thing doesn’t like Chip Malarkey, does it?” said Clovenhoof, limping over while clutching his side.
“It’s got good taste,” said Ben.
The van swung backwards round a corner and out of sight, the beast still clinging to it.
“Or maybe it doesn’t like that van,” said Nerys. “It’s the one that killed Twinkle.”
Ben, battered and bruised, put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
Nerys smiled and then, without warning, vomited all over his shoes.
It started to rain.
Chapter 11 – In which beasts come home to roost, Clovenhoof goes underground, and it all goes a bit Scooby Doo
In the end, they went home.
Buford’s funeral directors was a fiery ruin, Ben refused to consider spending another night at his rat-infested shop, and Nerys argued that three smoky and soot-stained individuals checking into a local hotel on the night of a huge fire might result in a swift transfer to the local cop shop. So, they went home.
“ARC Residential and Construction,” growled Nerys as she read the banner hung from the scaffolding across the front of their house on Chester Road.
“I
can’t believe Chip Malarkey started that fire,” said Ben.
“The man’s a grade A nutjob,” said Nerys.
“Worse,” said Clovenhoof, unlocking the front door. “He’s a believer.”
Ben stepped first into the hallway. The carpets had been taken up, and the walls were partially replastered.
“I don’t think that’s fair,” he said. “We know plenty of God-botherers, and they’re quite nice people. Actually, they’re the nicest people we know.”
“What?” laughed Clovenhoof. “Even Michael?”
Ben’s footsteps echoed hollowly as he made his way upstairs. “Even Michael. He’s a bit of a zealot, but he’s a sane and pleasant guy. Perfectly sane and normal.”
Michael perched on the edge of the spire’s parapet and spied on the town through his surveillance goggles.
Fire crews had arrived at Buford’s fifteen minutes earlier and were fighting to put out the blaze. Several streets away, two police cars were parked beside the mysterious, shattered remains of a coffin. Michael had tried to keep a tab on each of the players in the evening’s chaos, but all had disappeared. Clovenhoof and his unfortunate human companions had gone off somewhere towards the south. The beast had lost its grip on the van somewhere around Emmanuel Road, and the van had skidded off into Penns Lane.
Michael didn’t want to believe the evidence of his own eyes, but that van looked awfully like Chip’s. Surely, the man’s misguided grudge against Nerys couldn’t extend to attempted murder …
Michael’s phone rang. It was Chip.
“Morning, Chip,” said Michael, glancing at the time readout in the corner of his goggle display. “You’re up late. I was just, erm, thinking about you.”
There was silence for a time but for the heavy, ragged breathing of a man who was either out of breath or scared, or both.
“That beast,” said Chip.
“Yes?” said Michael.
“It’s real.”
“I’m afraid it is,” said Michael.
“I …”
“Did you … encounter it?”
“What do you mean?” said Chip, sharply.
“I … heard that it had attacked a builder’s van a bit earlier.”
“What? That thing is the work of the devil.”
“Demonspawn,” agreed Michael truthfully.
“It must be stopped.”
“I did suggest that someone, a faithful member of the church, might be able to track it and capture it.”
“Kill it,” said Chip flatly.
Michael nodded in the dark.
“I assume that the individual who performed such a valiant and righteous act would earn quite a number of Piety Points.”
“Their salvation would be guaranteed,” said Chip.
Of the two first floor flats, Ben’s was marginally more habitable. Walls had been stripped to the plaster, floor coverings and even some floorboards ripped out. There was not a stick of furniture left. But it was clean, warm, and out of the rain.
Nerys sat curled up in a corner. Ben rolled up some plastic sheeting to make a pillow and hugged his dressing gown about him. Clovenhoof simply laid out on the hard floor.
“It’s been a funny old night, hasn’t it?” he said.
Ben blinked and stared at the ceiling. “What happened to us?” he said.
“We got drunk, set on fire, rode a coffin round Boldmere, crashed, and then watched a mutant monster savage a transit van.”
“No,” said Ben. “What happened to us? I used to have such a simple life. I had a little flat and a little shop and a two-thousand strong scale replica of the Seleucid army and a burgeoning collection of mounted animals and … and … it’s all gone. What happened?”
“I’d have thought that was obvious,” said Nerys.
“No.”
“Jeremy Clovenhoof, Ben. That’s what happened to us. We were fine and happy. I had a job I enjoyed, a string of men waiting to wine and dine me, my little flat with my Aunt Molly and her little dog Twinkle. And then he came along.”
“And that’s when your lives truly began,” grinned Clovenhoof.
“No,” said Nerys. “That’s when the crap began. The noise, the smells. The fires. I nearly lost my job twice because of you. You succeeded on the third attempt. You’ve crashed my car. You’ve upset my neighbours. You’ve stolen so many mobility scooters, I’ve lost count. The police come here so often, I’m thinking of giving them their own key. You bring dead things into the flats. Random drunks. Loaded weapons. A baby. A psychotic monkey. It’s always you, Jeremy. You, you, you. And now …” She sighed, exhausted. “No flat. No Aunt Molly. No dog. No man. No future. No life. God, there isn’t even any alcohol to numb the pain.”
“I don’t think we can blame Jeremy for everything,” said Ben. “It’s all very sad and that, but we can’t blame him for Twinkle. Or for your Aunt Molly.”
“Can’t we?” said Nerys. “Do you not see that everything he touches turns to shit?”
“That would be a cool superpower though,” said Clovenhoof. “Shit-man!”
“It is a superpower, isn’t it?” said Nerys with a cold malevolence. “It is what you do. I think it’s time Ben knew the truth.”
“Truth?” said Ben.
“Truth?” said Clovenhoof.
“Do you not think it odd that this … individual appears in our lives without warning one day and, immediately thereafter, things just start going wrong? This … character who behaves like no one else on earth, says things none of us would dream of saying, does things that no sane human would do. Yes, it’s almost in-human, isn’t it?”
“Inhuman is a strong word,” said Clovenhoof.
“It’s like he’s some alien being or evil visitor from some diabolical realm,” said Nerys. “I mean, look at him.”
Ben rolled onto his side and looked at Clovenhoof.
“I mean, really look at him,” said Nerys. “He doesn’t even look normal when you really, really look at him.”
“I know it’s been a tough night …” said Ben.
“No. Look!” insisted Nerys. “I think it’s time you knew who Jeremy Clovenhoof really is.”
“Is it?” said Jeremy, mildly panicked. “Does Ben really need to know?”
“Oh, he does,” said Nerys between gritted teeth. “Because I can’t manage this alone anymore, and Ben needs to see you for what you really are.”
“What is he?” said Ben.
Nerys narrowed her eyes. “He’s a git.”
Clovenhoof’s jaw dropped. He had been expecting something else and had his ‘Me? The devil? How ridiculous!’ counterarguments all lined up in his mind.
“A git?” he said.
“A bloody stupid git,” said Nerys.
Clovenhoof considered this. “I would add,” he said, “a bloody stupid git with over a thousand Twitter followers.”
Ben nodded and rolled onto his back for sleep. “You’re right. A bloody stupid git,” he said, comforted by the thought.
“Yeah, but a bloody stupid git with over a thousand Twitter followers and the sweetest baby girl on the planet.”
“She’s not yours,” said Nerys, as she struggled, and failed, to find a comfortable sleeping position.
“She was,” he said. “And Toyah says I can look after her two days a week if I want.”
“Because she knows free childcare when she sees it.”
“And I should think I’ll have more free time now that my workplace has been burned to the ground. Every cloud has a silver lining.”
“You’re an idiot,” said Nerys.
Clovenhoof scrolled through the photos and videos on his phone. With the exception of some rudely shaped vegetables and photos of angry people he had met in his daily doings, they were all of Beelzebelle. He watched the videos and let his wonderful little girl lull him to sleep.
The rain didn’t let up and, in the hours before dawn, the gutters became babbling brooks, orange and silver in the streetlights. Michael, atop St
Michael’s, had become a gargoyle, perfectly still and staring stoically at the town beneath him.
The Buford’s fire was out, but there were still fire engines and police cars at the scene. Flicking between infrared and thermal imaging, his eyes roved the rooftops and alleys. For the last few hours, there had been few sightings of note. A few people walked (or, more frequently, staggered) through the night. A couple of cats and a one soggy-looking fox braved the rain.
It seemed that the excitement around midnight was going to be the high point of his vigil, but then something slunk into view down the Chester Road. It was prowling along the row of detached garages that ran behind the houses, sniffing this way and that, sensing its way cautiously along the backs of the houses.
“Are you hunting?” Michael mused. “Or going back to your lair?”
The beast padded down from the garage roof and towards the back of one of the houses.
Michael grunted to himself when he realised which house it was.
Nerys woke with a crick in her neck, a stabbing headache, and the mother of all bad tastes in her mouth. It was still dark beyond the curtainless windows. She staggered to her feet in search of paracetamol and water. She grabbed her handbag and popped some pills from the foil. The taps in the kitchen worked – thank God! – and she swilled her mouth under the tepid trickle.
She decided she would take another small nap and wait for the worst of her headache to subside, but then she heard a noise. It was hard to be certain above Ben’s snoring and Clovenhoof’s farting, but there was definitely a noise coming from above. A scraping, shifting sound.
“Ben! Jeremy!” she hissed. “I heard something!”
“Yeah,” mumbled Clovenhoof, rolling over. “That was a wet one.”
“No, not that. Someone’s upstairs!”
“Not possible, Nerys,” said Ben. “Those stairs aren’t safe.”
“Right, of course. Axe murderers are well known for carrying out risk assessments.”
Ben sat up and fastened the cord on his dressing gown. “Maybe it’s Gorky,” he said.
